Who, what, when, where, why and
how - it's a journalist's call to action, and the exact set of questions "Crisis"
viewers asked themselves following Sunday night's pilot.

After an exciting, fast-paced
first hour - one in which a group of Ballard High School students are abducted,
and their parents are forced to help the kidnappers - we were left with many
questions.

Which is exactly where creator and
executive producer Rand Ravich wants us.

"Crisis" makes no bones about
keeping viewers in the dark as to who's good/bad, what's happening, when the
next shoe will drop, where the next crazy twist will be found, why these
children are so important and how they're going to be rescued.

It's an exciting thrill ride for
viewers, as well as the show's actors.

"For me, I look at it like - that
we just accept the information and the given circumstance that we have in any
particular scene. And I'm kind of excited by the idea that Rand Ravich, who is
the creator of the show, and really kind of a mastermind - in my opinion - at
this particular kind of genre, I'm excited by the kind of possibilities of all
the chips being kind of thrown in the air," Rachael Taylor told BTS. Her
character, FBI agent Susie Dunn, is called in to deal with the Ballard High
parents - a group including royalty, diplomats, the president's son and her estranged
sister, Meg Fitch (Gillian Anderson), who is a powerful businesswoman.

Little
does the FBI know that Meg's kidnapped daughter is not her own, but Susie's.

"We worked with Phil Noyce on the
pilot, who is a great director, who knows this genre really, really well,"
Taylor said. "So what I feel like we really tried to create, both on the pilot
and then the first episode - maybe Lance would agree - is this kind of really
solid kind of foundation of who our characters were, and how they kind of
behaved, so then we had that kind of solid basis to operate from. But I have to
say, just as a - No. 1 as an actor, but as a kind of a fan of the show in my
own kind of weird way - it's kind of exciting to feel like things could change
on a dime at any minute - both while watching it and reading it, and also while
working on the show."

"Crisis" began with a sabotaged
school bus. Secret Service Agent Marcus Finley (Lance Gross), on his first day
of protection detail for the first son, is shot and left for dead by his
partner, Hurst, a storied Secret Service agent. Marcus manages to fend off another
attacker and rescue one of the children, Anton Roth (Joshua Erenberg).

Inside a large house, where the rest
of the children are being held, CIA analyst Francis Gibson (Dermot Mulroney),
who was with the children to chaperone their field trip, tries to figure out a
way of escape. His daughter, Beth Ann (Stevie Lynn Jones), is among the hostages.
When Francis tries to take down a gunman, he is captured and loses a finger. He
is rushed back to a surveillance room where it's revealed he is leading the
kidnappers.

As the episode wound down, we saw
Hurst chained to a chair, calling his intentions into question (does he have a kidnapped
relative, too?). We also saw a flashback wherein Francis' daughter was
threatened (so, does he have an ulterior motive?).

Who's good? Who's bad? We don't
know. But if the rest of this season's episodes are as exciting and intriguing
as the pilot, we're ready to see how this "Crisis" is resolved.

The cast is, too.

"I mean, it's super exciting for
me," Gross said. "I mean, as the cast members, we're kind of reading these
scripts - we get the scripts and we're reading them and they're page-turners.
And we, as the cast, No. 1, want to know what's next, because we don't know. So
I like that element of surprise. Of course, Rand gives us enough information,
because if there's something super-important that's coming on - coming along down
the line - of course he wants to prepare us for that. But, yeah, it keeps us
intrigued as actors, you know. And it's fun, and you just never know who to trust,
and it's always exciting for us."

"Crisis" airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on NBC.

•Joshua Maloni writes about television shows such as "The Voice," "Helix," "Psych,"
"The Black List," "Grimm" and "24." Follow him on Twitter @joshuamaloni.